The Miracle Pumpkin Story

Acts 4: 22 “For the man was above forty years old, on whom this miracle of healing was shewed.”

I’ve noticed that still sitting around my house, I have two pumpkins still healthy looking from last October. We just got rid of two last week and as my readers know, we had quite a display of our homegrown pumpkins around the house. There HAS to be a story in there somewhere, I thought. So now I give you, The Pumpkin story.

It was October 2011. Steven had gotten his cornea transplant in Omaha, where we stayed a couple of days. The first thing he saw that day the bandages were taken off was my beautiful face. He looked around the office, at the Doc who had been caring for him for months while he was blind, and I just sat there with tears in my eyes (and a few already wet Kleenex, if you must know.) We went back to the hotel and as you can imagine, people who saw us leave, Steven holding my arm, were quite puzzled when they seen him walk back in, not needing assistance, and no cane in hand!

We made a couple of trips out to the front of the hotel so he could look at the sky, the flowers, the cars and people. He was like a kid in the candy store trying to pick out just one thing to look at but as you can imagine, being totally blind for three years (wondering if you’d ever see again) there was a lot to look at and behold.

The next morning we left for home three and a half hours away. Steven just stared out the window with his heavily tinted glasses. On occasion he took them off for a better view. It was such a joy to bring him home to SEE the house he had lived in for almost three years, without ever SEEING the place.

Finally the moment came when we pulled up to the house. Right by the front steps were two pumpkins left by his mother who had taken care of our dog while we were away. His mom and sis live pretty close by, so they enjoyed helping in that way. I called them our miracle pumpkins because they were received during our time of a miracle happening in our life. We entered the house and there was balloons welcoming us home and a note from Sassie, our dog, saying she missed us.

It was a little overwhelming as Steven was now a sighted person again, and I was busy not being so busy. It wasn’t long before he began cleaning up things and making this home, his home. He was finally touching and feeling AND seeing everything for the first time in three years!

Months had passed by but one occasion as we arrived home from Church, we noticed the pumpkins getting soft and leaning to the side. It was quite a few months sitting in the cold brisk Nebraska air and it seemed like forever, but those pumpkins endured and looked as if they were never going to die!

We told Adam (my son) to scoop up the soggy miracle pumpkins and throw them in our garden, where they lay for months on end until spring, with a splash of miracle, took hold of them. That is when we noticed our miracle pumpkins had taken root and decided to flourish.

We separated all the plants into tidy rows, and as the summer months came and went, we had an abundant assortment of different sized pumpkins. Now keep in mind, we’ve never grown pumpkins in our life, but my newly sighted man took it as his project to see these pumpkins become something wondrous rooted in a miracle. He tended them daily and nurtured them to fully grown pumpkins.

Our miracle pumpkins had multiplied. At this time we were also experiencing a bountiful amount of blessings in our life. Steven had gotten his license back, a job, and all was going right in the world AND my garden.

Then came time to harvest the miracle pumpkins, one here and one there. We sat a few on our steps but knew the cold would sweep them away and a few, it did. But many were salvaged and saved and brought into the house in October 2012!

And here we are April 25, 2013 and I have two remaining very much-alive pumpkins! How’s THAT for miracle pumpkins?

Jer. 33: 6 “Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth.”

Prologue to the Journey Part III

 I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.
***

We were basically forced to move to Nebraska, Stevens hometown, in April of 2009, after for me, six years in Texas with him.  I say forced because the cost of living is much higher in Texas, and we had read online that medicaid was available to the blind.
 

Never trust what you read on the internet because medicaid was only available as long as he collected SSI, not SS. Don’t ask about the terminology. That is not the story here. The story is that the Lord saw to it we had a place to come to, at an affordable rate. His family all pulled together, cleaned this place up, scrubbed, and washed nooks and crannies, prayed and asked for prayer and our Maker never let us down.
 

We arrived to a clean house on a Turkey Ranch, out in the middle of nowhere, basically. We had food in the pantry and an envelope of money from the Gibbon Baptist Church’s donation for our family in need.
 

First on our list was to find a good church and after three attempts at different Churches, we walked in the doors of EFree Evangelical church and had to look no more. We had found a home.
 

Stevens sight deteriorated from the first step into the house. It was as if God waited for us to get here, and then the sight disappeared. We had support from the Federation of the Blind. They wanted him to go to Lincoln to learn to BE blind, and we both were adamant in stating that this was only temporary. And they quickly bowed out seeing we were, uncooperative (their term), But not after introducing him to the JAWS Screen Reader.
 

Quickly he found a free screen reader that was easier for him to use than JAWS and since he was extremely familiar with the computer and all the ALT keys, he had no problem enjoying the computer, via audio book reviews, and life as a blind man blogs.
 

Life for the next two and a half years was an up and down roller-coaster ride in the center of a raging thunderstorm. Pieces fell to the floor, parts were swept away, hair disheveled but upon landing in March 2011, we began to see things take shape and that everything wasn’t as messy as we thought.
 

Medicare came through, medicaid came through, the doctors visit was promising and hopeful from the very first visit, and things just kept going as an assembly line of chocolates, each day we found a sweet surprise and hope awaiting us.
 

We were going to need $3000 dollars, gas for the trip to Omaha, food and shelter, but by the time the surgery was scheduled, EVERYTHING was paid for! The hospital, the doctor, the food, gas AND the shelter! That alone made me stand up and say, “What an amazing God!”
 

Now for the more amazing part. We went to church on Sunday before the scheduled trip to Omaha. We wanted a powerful send off in  prayer and we got it. The trip was wrought with rain and wind and I thought that the day was an entire bust. But we got to the the hotel without a problem, Monday he got the corna transplant operation, Tuesday by some strange powerful force, we found ourselves at the doctors (after getting lost for an hour and almost giving up) but the moment we all waited for had finally arrived.
 

“I can see.” As  a river of tears flowed, and emotions soared, we were on our way back to the hotel and a couple of days of discovery and exploration are truly in store.
 

Tuesday, Steven saw the house that he has lived in for two years, for the very first time.
I have experienced a miracle first hand and our lives will be forever changed.  All praise be to God!

As we head back to Omaha today because of a problem we go with God, the love of many and the POWER of prayer!!!
 

Matt. 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: